I'm a pretty easy-going guy, but certain things just bug me. The biggest offenders are stupid things. Here are some more of these things.
Reply-all
I know I'm not the first to complain about this annoying phenomenon, but I have to vent about it because of a certain coworker who never fails to include everyone in their replies to emails even when only the original sender needs the answer.
For example, the original sender might ask "Who needs [television equipment] time to work on something next week?" The correct thing to do would be to respond to the sender - and only the sender - because NO ONE ELSE CARES ABOUT YOUR ANSWER. But no, this person has to hit Reply-All and tell all of us.
There's an even more annoying person who sends their replies to THE ENTIRE DEPARTMENT. Is there a little narcissism in this (thinking that we really give a shit what they need), or is just plain carelessness with a dash of stupidity?
It gets even worse in my company. Someone will send out an announcement about a promotion to a broad mailing list, and someone else will hit Reply-All and not only congratulate the promotee, but also include some inside joke or reference that 99.999% of the people receiving the e-mail DON'T KNOW and DON'T CARE ABOUT.
Example:
I'm so happy for you Helmut! Now that you're a supervisor, maybe you can bring the empanadas! ;-)8
- Becky
Before hitting reply-all, ask yourself: "Does anyone other than the original sender need to know my answer?" If the answer is yes, go ahead and reply to all. If the answer is no, ask yourself "Am I a complete idiot?" If the answer is no, then DON'T FUCKING HIT REPLY-ALL.
Reply-all...in any language, a stupid, annoying mistake.
"Thoughtful" E-mail Signatures
This is another ridiculous e-mail trend. People seem to think that the people receiving their emails want to read an inspirational quote by Martin Luther King, Maya Angelou or Jim J. Bullock.
People are incorrect. I don't care if you think "All birds learn to fly" or "Everything Gene Kelly did, Ginger Rogers did backwards and in high heels." It's not inspirational, it's annoying and pretentious.
You don't see me adding quotes from Andrew Dice Clay to my emails, do you? Of course not. Personal inspiration is just that: personal. As Gandhi once said: "Keep that stupid shit to yourself."
Finally: Rappers
I don't mean all rappers (though I wouldn't weep if the CEO of Death Row Records were to end up in jail...oh wait). I'm referring to the phenomenon of everyone and their brother, their cousin, and their cronies putting out albums and calling themselves rappers. I admit that I don't follow rap, but who the hell are Chingy, Jeezy, Pitbull, Paul Wall Cassidy, Soulja Boy, and on and on? I have a feeling it started with Master P, who gave record contracts to everybody he could find. Come to think of it, I have no idea what Lil Jon has ever done aside from yelling "Yeaah!" on Chappelle's Show.
It just seems like every time you turn around, there's another crop of no-talent thugs pouring water on ebony behinds while money rains down and low-riders bounce in the background. Up next: Decimul, Frakshun and Kal Kewlis!
And there's no way these people can be earning the kind of money they want you to think they are. First time recording artists hardly make diddly squat...but then again, when you've been "featured" on 4000 other rappers' albums, I guess it adds up to enough money to buy a "grill" of "diamonds" from "QVC."
Makes me miss Yo! MTV Raps!
Following up on the smashing success of my last post, here's my latest gripe about other assorted stupid things.
Non-championship playoff t-shirts
Yay! My team is sort of a champion! It's great that your team got into the playoffs and maybe won a series or game, but aside from the last team standing at the end, who cares? No one remembers the losers!
I'm a diehard Yankees fan, but this next shirt is even dumber. It commemorates that they barely got into the playoffs, and is essentialy just another way to get you to part with $19.99 at Modell's.
I occasionally bust out my 1996 World Series champion t-shirt for fun, but do you think anyone will ever wear a 2007 Wild Card t-shirt again? Sure, right after I wear all four of my Buffalo Bills AFC Championship t-shirts (just kidding - I tossed them years ago).
Bad grammer and speling
As many of you know, when it comes to grammar and spelling, I'm sort of a martinet (look it up). It bugs me immensely when professional, college-educated people misspell everyday words and mess up simple grammar. For the record, here are the correct ways to spell and write/say some common mistakes:
#1
Incorrect: I should of brought more salsa con queso. What the hell? How could "should of" possibly be correct? What does that even mean??
Correct: I should have brought more salsa con queso.
#2Incorrect: Your welcome. Stop for a second and think about this. Your is a possessive word, so this means that the welcome belongs to you.
Correct: You're welcome. YOU ARE WELCOME. Think, people, think.
#3Incorrect: Let's meet for the next three Monday's. Again, a stupid yet all too common error. WHY in the HELL would you add an apostrophe to make something plural??? What ass-backwards school teaches this?? If you're talking about "Monday's meeting," fine, you can say Monday's because it's now possessive. But would you write "I have three dollar's" or "There are a lot of building's in New York City"? Sadly, many people would do this.
Correct: Let's meet for the next three Mondays. Plain and simple: to make most words plural, you just add an S. You NEVER EVER EVER HOLY FUCKING SHIT NEVER add an apostrophe - even if a word ends in a vowel, like potato. The plural is POTATOES, not potato's. WHAT THE SHIT??????????
#4Incorrect: The library book is past it's due date. Another moronic, illogical error. IT'S is a contraction of IT IS, so this sentence is actually saying "The library book is past it is due date," which makes no sense.
Correct: The library book is past its due date. ITS is possessive. IT'S is a fucking contraction. Get it straight.Peanut Butter Slices
I thought the label peeler I mentioned in my last post was the epitome of laziness; it turns out I was wrong. Witness the PB Slice.
No longer will the lethargic, inactive children of America have to endure the excruciating process of opening a peanut butter jar and using a utensil to spread the peanut butter on bread. All they have to do is wipe the Dorito dust off their fat fingers and unwrap one of these bad boys. Maybe they can slap one between a slice of Kraft American "cheese" and an unidentified "meat" from a Lunchable, and voila! They'll have a 100% processed, natural-food-free meal. This is assuming, of course, that they can put down the Jimmy Dean Chocolate Chip Pancake & Sausage on a Stick.
God help us.
Even though it took me a while to catch MySpace fever, and then another while to jump on the blog bandwagon (the blogwagon?), I'm going to take the drastic steps of ceasing my MySpace blogging activities and migrating my posts to this forum. This is a more blog-friendly blog platform, plus I'll do anything Pat Camden does (except root for the Red Pukes).
So look below for my first former MySpace blog, then above for the second one, followed by some original Blogger.com blogs! Can you contain your excitement?!? I can't - but maybe that's just the 8 cups of water I drank this morning.Bad gift ideas (originally posted on 12/21/07)Just in time for the holiday season (I'm a very-last-minute shopper), I thought I'd fill everybody in on some bad gift ideas. These aren't horrible gifts like ugly sweaters or "educational" wooden toys, but they're bad for other reasons. Without further ado:Spice racks
You might be saying, "Spice rack? What's wrong with a spice rack? It keeps my fennel, thyme and caraway seeds handy." True, a spice rack is a convenient gadget that puts all those wonderful flavors at your fingertips, but the convenience runs out once your first spice does.
Think about it: when you finish that jar of corandier, how are you going to fill it up again? From the new jar you buy at the supermarket?
Of course not!! You're just going to use the new jar!!
Unless you buy your spices in bulk and really want to refill the stupid little 8-ounce jars that come on a spice rack, don't fucking buy one.
PS: Who the hell uses shit like coriander and caraway anyway?? You only need 4 spices in your kitchen: cinnamon, curry, pepper and oregano.Breadmakers
I can speak from personal experience when I say that no matter how much you swear to yourself and/or your significant other that you will use it, you will NEVER use your breadmaker. I put one on our wedding registry. We got it. I opened it, put it in the closet and forgot about it. I finally donated it, unused, to a fundraiser auction. And even then, no one wanted it!! What a waste.
You know why you'll never use it? Because making bread is a HUGE PAIN IN THE ASS. It's incalculably easier to buy it. And you'll probably fuck it up anyway. There are so many variables: ingredient amounts, temperature, time, etc. Skip the breadmaker and go for something worth the time and effort, like a beer-making kit!!
Even if you fuck up the beer, at least you'll be fucked up too!!Incomplete DVD box setsI'm sure you've seen them by now: a big box set of all 9 seasons of Seinfeld or all 6 Star Wars movies. They usually come in a clever package and have all kinds of extras like interviews and documentaries. These are all well and good. My issue is with the newest bullshit rip-off scheme: partial box sets.
What do I mean by partial? A set with only seasons 1, 3 and 8? No - I'm talking about a box set of a show or movie series that ISN'T OVER YET.
Here are some of the more egregious offenders:
Seasons 1-5 of Reefer Drunkerland's hit show 24. If you bought this, how stupid did you feel when season 6 came out on DVD - but you'd already blown $200 on this "collector's edition" set. If you're that big a fan, why the hell wouldn't you wait until the show was done, finished, off the air??
While there's always a chance that 24 might end without notice after any given season - strikes, low ratings, DUIs, whatever - unless a fucking meteor hits the planet, this next series is not done yet.
Harry Potter: The First 5 Years DVD set
Unless you've been living under Rush Limbaugh's bloated ass for the last 10 years, you have to have at least a clue about the number of Harry Potter books and subsequent movies.
When the seventh and final book came out, I wish I could've trademarked "seventh and final," so that any time someone said it, I'd get paid. Unfortunately, that biotch J. K. Rowling beat me to it. Bitch stole my idea about a wizard school in England, too.
Back to the DVD set - I can understand if Grandma Ethel picks it up for you because she doesn't know any better (in which case you run to the store and exchange it for two Wii games) - but if you're a big enough fan of the Harry Potter films to want to own them all, there's no excuse. You MUST know that there are TWO MORE FUCKING MOVIES COMING OUT. What would be the point of having a 5-movie set and two more loose DVDs? Therein lies the rub: they WANT you to impulse-buy this set and then in three years buy the same fucking movies again!!
And finally:
The James Bond Ultimate Collector's Set
This sounds great - it's got all 21 James Bond movies, including last year's Casino Royale. But news flash - THEY'RE ALREADY MAKING THE NEXT ONE. Again, why the hell would I buy a big-ass box set, only to have some orphan movies sitting next to the box looking at it with puppy-dog eyes?
Of course I'll probably prove to be a hypocrite when I buy a Smallville box set when that show ends - even though I already have the individual seasons on DVD.Snowball maker
Yes, America's kids are now so fucking lazy that they can't even make snowballs without help. Kill me now.
And finally...another gift for the lazy people out there:
Not sure what that is?
That's right. It's a fucking label peeler. We have now become so fat and sedentary that PEELING LABELS is too arduous a task to do by hand. For God's sake people, burn those extra 8 calories and peel your fucking address labels.
OK, yeah, I'm a hypocrite. I swore I would never read, write or create a blog, yet here we are.
Just like with MySpace and fundamental Christianity, I resisted joining as long as I could.
Now I'm a part of the blogosphere (God I hate that word), so I might as well make the best of it and write some funny crap. Or at least try.
In the meantime, check out my funny friends' truly funny blogs:
Pat Camden: http://patcamden.blogspot.com/
Leah Dubie: http://leahdubie.blogspot.com/
Piece out!
Jonathan
